Page 200 of Fractured Loyalties
The alley across from the clinic smells like motor oil and burnt sugar—some bakery down the block leaking cinnamon into the rot of city gutters. I hate this part of town. Too familiar. Too open. The kind of place where people think daylight makes them untouchable.
It’s morning. Barely. Gray light leans on the bricks like it's too tired to fully commit. I haven’t really slept. I’ve been watching her window for hours.
It’s been two days since her cab peeled away from my place, and her silence shut the door harder than any words could have. I didn’t follow then.
But I’m here now.
She’s inside.
Moving like she’s fine.
Like the world didn’t try to devour her two nights ago.
Like I didn’t watch her knees buckle in the dark after the last shot was fired. Like I didn’t drag her behind the wheel and order her to drive while my shoulder wept red.
Mara Thomas has never looked more like prey than when she thinks she’s safe.
I lean against the edge of a dumpster, dressed like anyone else with a job and a grudge—dark coat, clean jawline, eyes flat as pavement. My Glock is holstered beneath the jacket, pressure riding tight against my ribs. Lydia would call this sloppy. Sentimental. She wouldn't be wrong.
Still, I stay. Watch.
She steps outside.
Not through the main doors—too exposed. She uses the side courtyard, gravel crunching beneath her sneakers as she angles her face to the sky. That bench to her right is rusted through. I know because I checked it last night. One leg loose. Useless.
She doesn’t sit. Just leans against the wall like it might tell her something.
For a second, I think she knows I’m here.
Her head lifts, and her eyes track along the alley like she’s smelling something rotten. It’s not paranoia if they’re actually watching you. I almost step forward. Almost break my own goddamn rule. But her eyes skip past, never landing.
Not me.
Someone else?
I follow her gaze. A black Civic idling near the corner. Tinted windows. No plate. Not Lydia. Her taste in tail cars runs cleaner. More subtle. If she were here, she'd be two buildings over, half a cup of coffee deep, and out of reach.
This is something else.
I feel it in my back molars. That weight. That shift in the air before violence takes shape.
She moves again—back inside. Her shoulders tight, jaw set. The door hisses closed behind her.
I slip my phone from my pocket.
“Talk,” Lydia answers, no preamble.
“Civic. Black. No plates. Outside the clinic. Yours?”
She’s silent long enough to make me taste copper.
“No.”
My hand curls around the phone. “Someone else is watching her.”
“Then it’s either Caleb, or someone smart enough to know how to look like a ghost.”
“Not Caleb. Too restrained,” I respond almost immediately.
